Des Moines Zoo Announces Birth of Endangered Species [PHOTOS/VIDEO]

Blank Park Zoo has announced the birth of one of the fiercest animals in the wild, but she sure is cute right now.

The zoo announced Monday that an 80-pound female eastern black rhino was born on the property last Tuesday, October 11 at approximately 11:23 a.m.

The baby, not yet named, is one of only seven black rhinos born at zoos around the world so far this year.

The World Wildlife Fund considers eastern black rhinos to be critically endangered. There are believed to be less than 1,000 of them remaining across the world, a 96 percent decline in the last 46 years.

Blank Park Zoo is home to two of only 58 eastern black rhinos in zoos across North America. Of the 58, only six are breeding females.

Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation, a nonprofit working to stop the world’s rhinos from becoming extinct, told the Des Moines Register “It’s so great that the baby is a female because the black rhino population tends to be skewed toward male. Her reproductive potential is quite high and, hopefully, she will contribute greatly to the overall population.”

The baby girl is believed to be the first eastern black rhino born in the state of Iowa. Since they haven't picked out a name yet, let me suggest one: Hope.